Internal combustion engines or at least parts thereof are known to be subject to wear and use in the course of their operating time. Thus, for example, injection pumps of diesel engines are known to exhibit a drift in fuel delivery in the course of their operating time, that is, they meter a progressively increasing amount of fuel to the internal combustion engine while the setting remains unchanged. Similar drifts in fuel delivery are also known from gasoline engines because of analogous processes. Since these drifts are measurable, it is possible to determine the drift behavior of the engine as a consequence of wear and use by means of tests. On the basis of this information, the drift behavior can be corrected by recording the total number of revolutions or total number of working strokes of the engine which is indicative of wear and use and hence of aging. In dependence upon the time recorded, the amount of fuel to be metered to the internal combustion engine is influenced, for example, reduced. With such a drift compensation, however, the basic problem is to "retain" the total number of revolutions or working strokes of the internal combustion engine, that is, to store it in some way.